The battery of decrees and declarations of the The new president of the United States, Donald Trump, on his first day back in the White House, has buried several statements about the Middle East that will take on particular importance in the coming weeks, ideas that have pleased the most radical ministers of the coalition he leads. Benjamin Netanyahu.
The main decision affecting the Middle East conflict adopted by Trump is the repeal of the sanctions regime against violent settlers that President Joe Biden launched in February 2023 and which represented an unprecedented measure against Israeli citizens by its main ally. , USA
These are a mix of measures against companies and individuals for their involvement in attacks against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, which usually take the form of physical attacks, harassment or burning of their homes and vehicles. It is one of 78 Biden executive orders that the Republican president has revoked on his first day in the White House. He signed it just as dozens of radical settlers burned homes and vehicles in the West Bank town of Al Funduq.
In addition to this measure, Trump has weighed in on the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect on Sunday and whose team he helped forge, along with the outgoing Biden Administration. The United States not only mediated the agreement, but is also its guarantor, along with Egypt and Qatar, and, in practice, what Trump decides from now on will determine almost his entire fate.
The truce has three phases, with the aim of becoming permanent. Netanyahu’s ultranationalist partners assure that he has promised to resume the fighting when the first one ends, in a month and a half, with Hamas handing over 33 of the 98 hostages, the next four this Saturday. This Monday, when asked by a journalist about whether he trusts that the ceasefire will hold, Trump responded: “I’m not sure. That is not our war, it is their war, but I think they are very weak on the other side [Hamás]”.
Then he began one of his usual disjointed speeches, reminiscent of the words that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, spoke in February 2024, with Gaza already full of rubble. Kushner — who as an advisor to Trump in his first term proposed a peace agreement so partial to Israel that it ended up in a drawer and promoted the historic transfer of the Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — said in an interview: “The property on the coast of Gaza can have a lot of value […] “if people focused on building a life.”
Trump’s words this Monday were: “I saw a photo of Gaza. It’s like a mass demolition site. It has to be rebuilt in a different way. Gaza is interesting. It has a great location. It is next to the sea. With the best weather. Everything is good. “Fantastic things can be done in Gaza.”
The journalist asked him if the United States will contribute to the reconstruction (“It could be,” he responded) and how he sees the future of the Palestinian enclave. “You certainly can’t have the people who were there,” he said, referring to the Hamas government since 2007, because “most of them are dead” and “they didn’t govern it exactly well.”
Neither occupation nor settlements
Trump made an isolationist speech and stressed that he wants to be remembered as a “peacemaker,” but he has appointed people with positions very close to the most extreme Israeli right to key positions. Its next ambassador in Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee, defends that “there is no” West Bank (he insists on using the biblical and official term in Israel for Judea and Samaria), nor the Palestinian people, nor the Israeli military occupation since 1967 (after the War of the Six Days), nor the Jewish settlements built since then in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but “communities, neighborhoods, localities…”. Netanyahu’s current coalition agreement defends the Jewish people’s “sole and exclusive” right to the entire Land of Israel, the biblical concept that encompasses modern-day Israel and Palestine, and promises to promote Jewish colonization.
Netanyahu, who already praised Trump’s “historic return” when he won the elections last November, has now congratulated him on his inauguration with similar enthusiasm: “I believe that by working together again, we will take the alliance between the United States and Israel to new levels.” even greater” and “we will complete the defeat of Iran’s axis of terrorism and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for our region.”
Netanyahu regretted at the time the approval of sanctions on Israeli settlers, arguing that his country “acts against all those who violate the law anywhere” (violent settlers actually enjoy a climate of impunity) and recalling that many inhabitants of the settlements were fighting those days “as regular forces or reservists in the defense of Israel,” in reference to the invasion of Gaza.
This Tuesday, Netanyahu has not commented on the revocation of sanctions, but the leaders of his far-right coalition partners, who reside in settlements and have been promoting colonization since coming to power at the end of 2022, have. The Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich thanked the new US president for his “unwavering and inflexible support for the State of Israel.” “It shows his deep connection with the Jewish people and our historic right to our land,” he added. The head of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, has applauded the correction of the “big mistake” made by an Administration “biased” in favor of the Palestinians.
Unrestricted ammunition
The outgoing US ambassador, Mike Herzog, said this Monday that he hopes Trump will restore the unrestricted supply of US-made one-ton bombs. It is a type of ammunition that kills anyone within dozens of meters and has produced some of the largest massacres in Gaza, including entire families.
In reality, Biden provided a record $18 billion in weapons and ammunition and blocked any condemnation in the United Nations Security Council of one of the most intense bombing campaigns since World War II. It only withheld one shipment of one-ton bombs, in May 2024, to prevent their use in the Rafah area, to which hundreds of thousands of displaced people had fled. Biden had marked the invasion as a red line, but then refused to condemn it, considering it “limited.” It ended up being total and leaving entire neighborhoods in ruins.
The decision on the one-ton bombs generated a crisis between the governments of both strong allies and criticism from the American Jewish community, mostly Democrats, which Netanyahu took advantage of to mobilize Republicans against Biden.
Since this Monday, the US president has also reestablished the sanctions that Biden suspended against the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant (his Minister of Defense for a long time) two months ago. part of the invasion of Gaza) for the alleged commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
